Skimlinks trial on MSE forums

oakhouse13

http://www.gm.tv/money/money-saving-expert-martin-lewis/52124-martin-lewis-debt-tips.html

Clear cookies then click link to Martin's free debt guide.

The MSE screen goes dim.

Before you can access the free guide it asks for your email address to sign up for weekly deals email which I would imagine is not what someone in debt crisis has in mind - shopping.

kermitfrog

oakhouse13 wrote: »

Before you can access the free guide it asks for your email address to sign up for weekly deals email which I would imagine is not what someone in debt crisis has in mind - shopping.

But you don't have to sign up - you can simply close the box.

oakhouse13

Simple is not what I would call the page. It's designed so you enter your email address. If it was simple why has the ICO said that this technique is bad practice?

Christopher Graham, Information Commissioner:

"mislead consumers or collect information you don’t need and you are likely to diminish customer trust and face enforcement action from the ICO"

There is no need to collect an email address to give someone access to a free guide.

meher

I suspect all of these features come up in new softwares; each new format has clever features and these are designed by software engineers who know their target market and their needs - so you know, it's universal. It isn't as if this site installs something unique to the site to manipulate visitors as you make out. Many sites have this sort propping up once a day or if you're clicking first time on that page. This is simply to offer an option which you can just click on the little cross button and shut it down and I think it is a good one. Just last week I went into an Airlines website and searched high and low looking for a place to enter my email address for news and offers and was frustrated to find none.

for the lesser techi and for those who are not registered to the site, an opt out default isn't a bright idea imo because it serves nobody any purpose - the default has to be opted in with a feature to opt out and imo it's conventional that all such features normally tend to favor the site concerned; please prove me wrong and show me one site that has been customised otherwise

Totality

Thinking about it, there's no chance of this becoming "opt in" is there? That way, MSE are going to miss out on revenue from those who use the forums without logging in/registering, of which I'm sure their are plenty. I don't always log in myself.

payless

sorry if already covered - I did skim" some of the previous pages:

E marketing / affiliate is big business... BUT merchants don't like any non-transperant methods:

For example- a random choice of terms & conditions from a merchant on a major affiliate program below

All clicks must first land on the affiliate’s site, and the user must click from the affiliate’s site to www.lauraashley.com. No direct linking under any circumstances.

Use of the domain www.lauraashley.com and variations is strictly forbidden in any ad copy including display URL. The word “Laura Ashley” cannot be used in the display URL’s in any text ad.

Affiliates must not attempt to disguise affiliate links behind redirect URLs for the purpose of masking activity.

Book marking is not permitted on the affiliate programme.


.....

another potential issue ?

Discount code/Voucher code use

All discount/voucher code use needs to comply with the official IAB guidelines, which can be found here: http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/iabsaffiliatemarketingcouncillaunchescodeofbestpractice110808.mxs

OR does this software meet all these conditions ( edit- guess so as some affiliate networks are members!)

Note sure I like the idea of this system ( detracts from those original affiliates who spend time promoting certain firms) but understand reasons why a commercial website would use it.

However from a merchants view - will it be considered as incremental sales... if not then if I was the bill payer ( merchant) I would say - why are we paying for these sales ??... leading to cancel association

payless

... I do think using skimlinks brings " free of Ads" tagline is into question now ?

oakhouse13

Merchants will like, and have to like to stay in business, anything that increases profit. An affiliate link can be turned off at any moment by the merchant if it is not making money for them. It's the merchant that controls the link, not the publisher.

Skimlinks is a disguised way for merchants to acquire inbound links from trusted sources like editorial and forums which improve considerably their Google search results. It actually kills the trustworthiness of content in my view in the course of monetising it.

Google was the first big business to make money from links. It created paid for advertising links that appear alongside its search results of linked content. You cannot pay Google to be listed in its search results. You pay Google to appear in its ads.

Skimlinks is about monetising the links Google doesn't, except Google owns Viglinks which does the same as Skimlinks.

I guess the internet will soon be just ads. A better solution for this site would be running Google ads down the side of the forum.

thelawnet

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

horlock wrote:

if MSE is so desperate for cash I think they would be better running google adds down the right hand side of the page

This would completely go against the ethos of MSE. You would end up with adverts for the very things that MSE is advising against...

Nonsense. Anyone can post (more or less) anything in the website, including links to things that MSE as a site might be opposed to. And MSE will automatically try to profit from those links. Someone linking to a site saying 'have a look at this rip-off product, it's so terrible' and then having that converted to an affiliate link is a bit odd.....

At least with adverts it's clear that they are not part of the site content.

thelawnet

daaave wrote: »

Please please please exclude the GIOL board from your skimlinks trial.

This board has helped thousands of people cumulatively make millions of pounds (I'm not exaggerating) risk free out of bookmakers bonus offers. This is only possible because we can stay 'anonymous.'

Bookmakers offer very generous affiliate backhanders to lure mug punters into signing up, and skimlinks will undoubtedly work hard to tap into this revenue stream. At the same time, bookies try very hard to identify advantage players (such as MSE GIOL board readers). The end result will be bookies identifying MSE forum readers amongst their customers and withdrawing (and potentially voiding) free bet offers. As every bet we place has an opposite bet, this will lose people money. This kind of behaviour on the part of bookies has happened before (with one bookie even changing their terms to explicitly exclude MSE users!) and Skimlinks will certainly make it more likely to happen again. When thousands of MSE members lose hundreds of pounds each, in part due to the Martins use of skimlinks the sites reputation will suffer.

We have a convention of obscuring links to bookie offers (mistyping http as hxxp, or www as wxw), but I fear this will not be enough for your intelligent software.

Please make our GIOL board exempt from the skimlinks trial before some MSE'ers lose serious money.

Yes that's true, there's a great (?) thread on another site where an affiliate manager went absolutely bonkers because the site was explaining how to profit from the bonus, and their affiliate link was showing a massive loss to the players. The affiliate manager went mad and made threats to the linking site, posted the site owner's home address, name and details, etc., told him to take the link down, all kinds of crazy stuff.

Suffice to say affiliate links from 'profit from bonus' forums will be noticed *very* quickly by affiliate managers.